Today, however, only two, old gentlemen were still sitting in the warm and comfortable room, each in his corner and as far away as possible from one another. The newcomer, too, selected a similar place and ordered a bottle of wine. He was unable to eat; as usual he had no hunger. The waiter, a son of the current proprietor who was serving his apprenticeship here according to an old custom, brought it to him. He was still as young as himself.
“You will certainly want to close soon,” the last guest for today said tiredly.
“No, sir,” sounded the friendly answer, “we’ll stay open, even if no one else comes. Don’t let me disturb you at all.”
“Don’t let me disturb you either,” he received as answer.
Graff poured himself a glass and drank the good and warming wine. I will remain sitting here, he thought. I will drink this bottle up, and then another, and perhaps still another . . . until—
But then he stood up suddenly, without having drunk the first bottle, paid, and hurried out.
A frantic restlessness had come over him.
Where was he? Where was he this evening, where? He seemed to be calling him. With a beseeching and helpless voice, he was calling him. He now heard him calling quite clearly. Where was he?
He must look for him again—there!
*
Through the thick snow he quickly walked the first few steps to the Passage as if chased.
Now he was in the hall.
It was absolutely empty. Not a soul, not a single person was in it on this evening at this hour. It lay there—forlorn, desolate, dead.
In the middle the snow, which the storm had driven through the chinks in the glass roof, had piled up. An icy cold streamed through from all sides—from above, from both entrances.
Now walking through it alone, he reached the southern entrance. Here, too, there was no one. Through the fallen snow stamped, like ghosts in fog, muffled figures, reeling, hurrying, and disappearing, shadows of the night.
Graff was standing at the exit. Here they had seen one another for the first time. Here he had stood, alone, nervous, unacquainted with everything, innocent, on a spring day, a day full of sun and sky-blue. From here he had fled—from him. When had that been? Years ago, months ago, yesterday?
What lay in between? His whole life. Their whole life—his own life and his.
Graff shuddered within himself.
He was not here. Where was he?
He walked back. Still, not a human being. Only he. Nothing, he thought, nothing in the whole world can be so comfortless as this forlorn place of dubious pleasure, of desire, of vice. Nothing!—Oh, yes: one place—your heart!
He came again to the entrance on Unter den Linden.
Here, too, he had stood, no longer alone, no longer innocent, and therefore no longer fearful, but in the circle of the others, experienced, all too experienced in everything, and had looked at him when he caught sight of him: on the hot summer afternoon he had looked at him and not moved. And then he did follow him, to come to him!
He turned and walked down Unter den Linden, still, white, and empty of people.
There behind him—that cave, it was his grave. There he lay. From there had he just now called him.
But now his call had become silent.
*
He walked home.
Here, too, all was quiet. No light in the windows, as there was everywhere else today. This house, this cursed street, in which even the children were afraid to play, was passed over by all joy, all celebrations of life.
Only pain and suffering came here, as they had come to him. And death! Why did it not come today? And why not to him?
In his room he stood at first and stared blankly ahead. His arms hung down limply and his coat slid down from them.
Then he said to himself: “It is at an end. I will never see him again. For he is dead. Only as a dead person may I still think of him.”
And suddenly, as if hit by a blow, he fell into the chair at the table. There he lay, his face buried in his hands, in the final hours of this evening.
Weep, he thought. One may weep for a dead person. It is all that one can still do for him, even if it is of no use to him and he does not know.
But he was unable to weep. Since those first bitter tears as a child he had no longer been able to weep.
He only groaned at times, the way a poor, forsaken and forlorn person groans when even his dearest thing has been taken.
Only one comfort still remained for him—one thought:
Now nothing more can come—for this was the worst!
He did not know that the last and worst was still to come.
4
He got up late and dawdled away the hours, something he had never done before.
Outside, the snowstorm blustered through the streets and the flakes swirled around his window.
He ate in a wine cellar at the Weidendamm Bridge and only with difficulty found an empty table. He was surrounded by festive activity, laughter, and cheerfulness.
He walked home again. His room had been made, as always.
These days, too, he knew of and saw his landlady as little as usual. Was she at home? What did it matter to him!
He did not work. He wanted to read, but as often as he took a book in his hand he let it fall again. He walked around, picked up objects, looked at them as if he had never seen them before, and laid them back down again. A lighted cigarette went out. He crushed it, without knowing what he was doing.
The full perception of the complete senselessness of his life without him stood suddenly before him.
For what was he living? Why should he still live on?
For he now clearly felt that he was incapable of suffering any more. Joy had gone from his life, the short joy of a few weeks. Now suffering, too, was going and his life was robbed of its last meaning.
End it! he thought. Go to him, the dead one, lay yourself beside him, and die!
Go—but where?
There was no fear, no horror of death in him, but also no longing for it. Without a longing, a self-imposed end was—he felt—not possible.
Therefore he must continue to live.
He walked around again, picked things up in his hand—his pen, an ashtray, a glass—and considered them with the same long and absent gaze as before, as if he had never seen them.
He walked to the window and looked out.
The snow had stopped blowing. Everything was white out there—white powdered the opposite wall, empty, cold, and withdrawn.
Graff stared out at it.
There, where the rain gutter ran down, he had always stood. Now the place was empty.
No, it was not empty. Was he not standing there—there at the gutter—was he not standing there? No, his senses must be deceiving him. It could only be a shadow.
He stepped back into the room.
I’m becoming completely crazy, he thought. I am already.
“Fool and mislead by empty walls . . .” For the first time in weeks he said the words again to himself.
Then he suddenly laid his hands firmly against his temples.
No, he had not deceived himself!
With a wild leap he was at the window, tore the casement open, cried out, dashed down the stairs, was over there. He caught the collapsing form up in his arms.
He carried him over the street, up the stairs, into his room, and let him slide onto the nearest chair. He slammed the doors and window shut, then stood before him.
He stretched his hand out, as if to make sure that it was truly he, and immediately drew it back again.
A couple of times he even ran around the room as if mad.
Then he knelt down before him, who sat there with closed eyes, his head sunk down on his breast, his arms hanging down limply as if lifeless. He took the ice cold, white hands in his own, and breathed on them.
He found his first words:
“Gunther, where did you come from? What has happened? Gunther! Gunther! Do speak, please, sa
y just one word!”
No answer came.
Again he ran helplessly through his room—what ever should he do!—then knelt down before him again.
The boy lay there as if lifeless, his eyes closed.
Desperation gripped him.
He took him again in his arms, carried him to the sofa, covered him with all the blankets he could obtain, tore them off again, and began to undress him. First his shoes and socks. Water ran from them over his hands.
His feet were ice cold, like his hands, ice cold, frozen, bloody in spots.
He rubbed them, rubbed and rubbed.
He looked into his deathly pale face, into a gray, strange face.
“My God,” he thought, “if he dies here under my hands!”
He tried to consider. He drew him onto his breast, let him go again, breathed on him, and rubbed, rubbed again and again.
“Gunther, my Gunther, do speak, please, say just a word,” he whispered, “tell me that you still live!”
The boy, lying as if dead, let everything happen to him. His head fell again and again against the breast of his friend.
No, this won’t do! the latter thought.
It occurred to him that he must still have some cognac in the cabinet. He rushed there, grabbed the bottle, and filled the first glass he came to. He skimmed the yellow liquid between the bluish lips. Another sip—
He waited for the effect. The glass shook in his hand.
He waited anxiously. For a long time. Finally!
It seemed to help.
After about five minutes the boy opened his eyes and looked at him.
“Hermann!” he said softly. “Hermann!” Then he fell back again.
He lived! He lived!
“Yes, my darling, be still. Don’t talk. You are with me.”
Now yet another sip. The glass was almost empty.
What should he further do? He tried to consider.
Was it warm enough in the room? Yes, it was warm.
He must first get him out of his clothes, out of the wet, cold clothing.
As before with the torn, almost soleless shoes, the dripping socks, so now he began to undress him completely. Piece by piece he drew the rags and tatters from the body lying there motion-less—the jacket, the pants, the wool shirt—everything soaked through down to the last fiber.
A horrible smell arose from the bundle, which he rolled up and threw into a corner.
Again he rubbed his feet, his hands, his breast.
Now he lay there naked. He covered him anew in the blankets, up to his neck. His eyes were again closed fast, his lips lay pressed together.
He ran around in the room again: made hot water on the stove, fetched a pan from the bedroom, and his large sponge.
When the water was warm enough, he uncovered him again and began to wash him, infinitely carefully, as if he could hurt him with each light movement. But the boy appeared to feel nothing. He washed his legs, his breast, his neck, and his face. He stroked his hair smooth.
“Gunther! Gunther!” he whispered again and again, but the boy continued to lie there motionless.
Only now, when there was nothing more to do, did he look at him and a sob choked his throat.
My God, how emaciated he was! All the ribs of his slim, sunken-in breast stood out, his shoulder bones, the joints of his arms, everything so thin, so wasted, fleshless, and his skin so gray, so bloodless.
A horrible thought flashed through the man standing there. With as gentle a movement as possible, he took the body—light as a feather—and turned him over. No, on his back, from which the shoulder blades projected sharp and hard, there were no visible traces of mishandling—of beatings.
After he had drawn over him one of his own shirts, he let him sink down again and covered him anew—thick and tight, so that only his face still showed.
He did not know what to do now.
He sat beside him and looked at him anxiously.
His gaze never left the face on the pillow.
It was still gray and lifeless, but it did seem no longer so deathly pale.
He bent over to his mouth.
He was breathing. There was no doubt; he was breathing. He lived.
He shoved his hand under the cover and laid it over his heart. It appeared to beat. Weakly, but it was beating.
He considered again. No, he could do nothing now but wait, until life had returned.
He looked at him. Steadfastly. He was unable to think. He only felt how his own heart beat like mad and his knees trembled.
He sat and watched him, anxious, waiting. After a quarter of an hour, the cheeks there before him appeared lightly, quite lightly, to redden. His cracked lips, too, were no longer so bluish as before.
He reached for his hands. They were still cold, but no longer quite like ice.
Again he bent over him . His breath seemed to Graff to be coming stronger.
He listened. He appeared to be sleeping. But did he not just now speak?
What had he said? He had not understood it.
He listened, again closely bent over, tense. “Hungry!” It was only a whisper.
Hungry!
Hermann spoke close to his ear:
“Gunther, do you hear me? Are you hungry? Do you want to eat? What do you want to eat?”
Then he saw the boy open his eyes and stare at him.
Faintly but clearly he heard him speak again: “Eat!”
“Yes, eat! Of course. Whatever you want. What do you want to have, my boy?”
He looked around at a loss. He had almost nothing in the house. Nothing of what was necessary now.
Gunther was now awake. He lay motionless, looking at him with large and quite dark eyes. But he spoke not a word.
Graff pulled himself together.
He laid his arm around the pillow and said:
“Gunther can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying? Can you stay alone a moment? Only five minutes. You know no one will come. I’ll go around the corner quickly and buy something. Just for a very short time. I’ll be right back!”
The boy appeared to understand. He nodded wordlessly.
But Graff still hesitated. Should he leave him here alone? Surely. Who could come? Never did anyone come here to him. No one knew that he was here with him. What could happen to him in those couple of minutes!
It was surely not only the cold, it was his losing strength from hunger.
Eat—that was now the main thing.
Eat—he had just said so himself.
Yes, he might go calmly. But where could he get anything today? All the shops were closed today and tomorrow for Christmas.
The pub in the neighborhood, where he often ate, occurred to him. A kind old waiter was there. He would help.
Once more he glanced back at the room before he left. The lamp was burning peacefully on the table by the sofa. The boy lay there sleeping again, as it appeared. Nothing disturbed the quiet of the room.
He lived. He was rescued. He was breathing calmly.
He reached for his handbag. It was the same one that had accompanied the two of them that time to Potsdam and had not been used since.
He left hesitantly. But he would be right back.
*
He had hardly closed the apartment door behind him than light, inaudible steps glided over the corridor. They stopped before his room.
Then the latch was softly pressed down and two black, sparkling eyes looked into the room, glancing over the disorder in the room, the table, and, brightly lit by the lamp, the form of the sleeping boy in the pillows on the sofa.
She lit up with satisfaction.
Then the door closed again just as quietly, a tall, lean, black figure disappeared again, and the soundless steps glided back through the darkness of the hall.
*
Hermann had luck.
The old waiter in the pub, which still had very few customers at this early afternoon hour of the first day of the holiday, gave him everything he
wanted: cold cuts, butter, sausage, a loaf of bread, a couple of eggs, and a bottle of red wine, more than his bag could contain and almost more than the pocket of his overcoat could hold.
When he returned to his room, he found everything unchanged.
Gunther was sleeping now and obviously soundly.
He could not bring himself to wake him. Food was necessary when he awoke, but sleep was now the best medicine. With sleep, warmth would return, and with it, strength and health.
He is not sick, he told himself. Only tired, dead tired.
He took the lamp away from the table and carried it to the desk, so that the sofa lay in half-darkness.
Then he arranged the things he had purchased on the table and brought plate, knife, and fork, so as to have everything ready when he awakened.
When everything was done, he sat down again beside him.
Color had now returned to the sleeping boy’s face, indeed it appeared as if he now had a fever. He felt his forehead—it was hot and sweaty. His hands were burning, and his body in the pillows was warm and moist.
He became calmer.
Only now, as he was sitting beside him again, listening to every breath of new life, there came to him for the first time in this hour (only one hour had gone by—not possible!), there came to him for the first time the thought that he had him again! It was not a joy, nor an ecstasy—it was something still incomprehensible.
He did not yet ask himself: What had happened? What had they done to him that he returned like this? Those people, those people!
He did not yet ask himself anything.
He only knew that he had him again! He was again with him! He was lying there! He—lived!
Gunther slept and slept. But Graff was glad to see it. It was the healthy sleep of recovery.
And in the long hours of the dying day, of this quiet evening, of this long night, in which he sat almost motionless beside him and hardly looked away from his face, he forgot what he had suffered for him, he forgot everything, everything, as if it had never been, in the one blissful thought:
He is again mine! I have him again!
He scarcely moved.
Only once did he lay his temple on his hot forehead, as if to make sure that he was not dreaming—that it was reality.
The Hustler: The Story of a Nameless Love From Friedrichstrasse Page 21